5 mobile phone features you probably never use (but perhaps should)

RSS reader

Although an integrated RSS reader is only becoming common on the latest handsets there are a number of ways to get the latest news feeds to display on your phone.

One phone we tested was the Sony Ericsson K800i which comes with an easy to use RSS reader. Accessible from the Messages menu the feeds sit nicely alongside the SMS Inbox and Email folder rather than being tucked away on their own.

Out of the box for UK customers the feed reader comes pre-populated with feeds from top sites such as the BBC and Sony Ericsson. Feeds can be updated on demand or by scheduling updates hourly, daily or weekly.

The interface is very clear and user friendly and we much prefer the instant access it offers compared to loading up and navigating using the phones web browser. RSS feeds are a much smaller file size than standard web pages so will consume less of your valuable bandwidth.

For those of you who don’t have an RSS reader built in there are several Java applications and feed aggregation services which offer much the same effect. We covered most of them in a recent mobile RSS review feature.

Mobile blogging

There are a huge variety of blogging platforms available and most of them offer some facility to allow content to be posted from a cell phone. Whether this is by logging in on your phones internet browser, sending an SMS message or an email or even publishing directly using an interface built into your phone all the methods achieve the same aim – to publish your content online.

Blogger.com offers a simple SMS / email service – users simply send the blog post to go@blogger.com and it’s automatically posted to the right place.

The Blogger mobile website writes;

Blogger.com have also created a very slick application on recent Sony Ericsson phones to allow you to post straight to your blog from within the menu of you phone. Simply find the image you wish to publish and open up the “Send To” menu with the right hand soft key. Select the send image “To Blog” option and the image will be published directly via the Blogger service. We did some testing of this service and it works perfectly and is just as easy as the following screenshots show.

USB cable

Most high end mobile phones over the last few years come equipped with a USB cable to allow a direct connection to your PC or printer. As cell phones have become more like cameras over the last few years the manufacturers have been keen to make uploading and downloading images and music files as accessible as possible.

Many people believe that there is little point in using your USB cable if you don’t want to transfer photos to your PC or upload music but there are some other pretty useful applications as well.

For those of you who like the latest ring tones and background images the USB cable is of huge value. MP3 files you have stored on your computer hard drive can be transferred quite easily to your phone and used as a ring tone. Upload your favourite tracks or download more from some legal download sites and you can have the latest ring tones free of charge every day. Find your favourite photos from last years birthday or Christmas party and use them as a screensaver or background image via the USB cable.

GPRS connection

Users who make the most of mobile blogging, internet surfing and reading the latest RSS feeds already make the most of a GPRS connection but there is another little known use for this technology.

A service called Tex2 markets an application allowing users to send text messages free of charge over a GPRS connection. We reviewed the service in depth recently but essentially the software is a Java application and the messages are free to send with the only charges being the GPRS charges, usually on a cost per Megabyte basis, levied by your service provider.

Read our full review of the Tex2 service for more details.

The camera

Some readers may disagree with this one but a huge number of people don’t make best use of their mobile phone camera. Most cameras over the half megapixel threshold can take photos that are perfectly usable outside of mobile devices. The quality of your photos may look good on a cell phone screen but until you view the same image on a computer screen its hard to know how good the camera really is. IN fact, the majority of modern cameras are quite capable of taking pictures of a size and quality that is perfect for emailing and viewing online.

Try connecting your mobile phone to a PC via the USB cable and see how the photos look on your screen. If they are good enough to use then your phone could take over as an everyday camera quite easily.